The present invention relates to a remote control apparatus for an electric appliance and, more particularly, to a remote control apparatus providing infrared control to control power supply to an electric appliance through a wireless transmission technique.
Use of various electric appliances becomes more frequent as a result of development of techniques. Use of more electric appliances is followed by use of more remote controllers for controlling ON/OFF and functions of the electric appliances. Research of equipment providing control through networks is conducted, while the electric products, such as touch screen mobile phones, perform more and more functions. However, most home electric appliances are still controlled by infrared control, which is the cheapest way and provides easy operation for less complicated electric appliances. As a result, more and more electric appliances are equipped with an infrared remote controller.
A user in a home or in an office is troubled with the increasing number of infrared controlled products, because most of the infrared remote controllers are not compatible to each other even if having similar outlines that cause difficulties in identification if placed together. Another disadvantage of infrared control is that the infrared remote controller must be directed to a control point on the electric appliance within an operating range without any obstacle between the control point and the infrared remote controller. Control is poor or even impossible if the battery of the infrared remote control is low, the infrared remote controller is too far away from the control point, or an obstacle exists between the infrared remote controller and the control point.
For saving energy and reducing carbon emission, it still takes time to set the timing function by operating the infrared remote controllers on the site, even though some of the products, such as air conditioners or televisions, have a timer. If the user forgot to set or if the user left without turning the electric appliance off, the user has to spend time going back to turn off the power, leading to inconvenience as well as electricity waste. These situations are not uncommon to many users. Despite these disadvantages, infrared remote control is still the economic way of wireless control and is the most common accessory for electric appliances. Furthermore, long range control techniques, such as WiFi (wireless fidelity), can not be widely used on electric products. The large number of current infrared controlled products can not be replaced by other technical solutions. It is, thus, an important issue to provide consumers with easy-to-install relay type long-range remote control devices directly suitable for current infrared remote controlled products.
To solve the above problems, a remote control device with both infrared and Bluetooth interfaces has been provided. The remote control device includes a plurality of infrared emitting ends corresponding to infrared reception ends on electric appliances. The Bluetooth interface of the remote control device can be connected with a Bluetooth interface of a handheld device. A Bluetooth control signal sent out by the handheld device can be converted by the remote control device into an infrared control signal that is sent out by the infrared emitting end to control one or more of the electric appliances. The remote control device is designed to control many electric appliances at a time and is, thus, placed in a central area among the electric appliances. Such a spatial design does not allow each infrared emitting end to be directed towards the infrared reception end of the corresponding electric appliance. Furthermore, the control signal could be weak or poor because of the distance and obstacles between the remote control device and the electric appliances.